Waiting tables. Bartending. Hospitality, food delivery, beauty salons, rideshare driving. The service industry, as anyone who has worked in it knows all too well, is notorious for relying on tipping to undercut employee wages and deputize individual customers to determine how much money a worker should be able to take home. Amid increasing recognition of these injustices, a number of campaigns and new laws surfaced, pre-pandemic, to abolish or meaningfully reduce the practice of tipping.
But despite the best efforts of these campaigns, tipping remains the industry - and American society - standard. Indeed, the perverse logic of tipping has broadened into an ever-present 'snitch economy' - an ecosystem of tactics like mystery shoppers and Uber and Yelp rating systems designed to police the behavior of workers while outsourcing the costs of said supervision to customers and other workers.
In the process, our snitch economy pits those being surveilled against those doing the watching, and the judging. Through a ubiquitous public-facing network of rating and reviewing other people’s labor - and often the behavioral disposition they exhibit while working - people with otherwise very little power are elevated to temporary positions of authority over others, fostering a culture of surveillance rather than one of solidarity. The snitch economy serves the dual purpose of not only giving working people a false sense of power when they’re the ones being served, but also reducing millions of human interactions to opportunities for not only snap judgments, but subjective rewards and retribution.
These screens aren't usually touch-sensitive, no? I don't usually fill up at Valero's, but those buttons on the side are often used because the screens aren't designed for touch. I'm in a cold climate though, so maybe they just don't use them here...
It's annoying but I wouldn't call it dystopian.
At least where I live, it's an equal mix of "wear your seatbelt", "don't text and drive", and weed dispensaries.
It's not exactly prime advertising space, so you really just get PSAs and weed.
Worst part is when you're getting gas late at night, say after driving back from a family dinner in another city and so you're tired and full, and you're all alone at the pumps on an otherwise quiet night.
Something deep inside the pumps makes them decide to start playing their advertisments from all the pumps at once, but they're not perfect, so they're just a little out of sync.
So it's dark and you're tired, relaxed, and almost home. When out of nowhere, from all around you, comes the stereophonic cacophonous cry of "B-B-B-BONGS! B-B-B-BLUNTS! AND MORE, AT THE HOUSE OF DDDDANKKKKK!"
It's definitely annoying, but I wouldn't call it a dystopia.
It's actually one of the few places I'm fine with ads. I'm just standing there and I can't look at my phone so why not. Ads are only annoying when I'm trying to do something else like watch a video.
I don't drive much anymore, but when I did I would avoid gas stations with screens (aside from payment screens obviously). If I saw that an unfamiliar gas station had one, I'd get back in my car and get gas elsewhere even if it was a tad more expensive. Forced viewing of advertisements makes me violently angry, and I don't need the stress of trying to repress that anger
Alright I haven't been to a gas pump in a few months, but when did they start playing ads??? Shit is crazy. Maybe I just never noticed, come to think of it I've never been the one pumping the gas before
They’ve been playing ads for at least a decade.. though in the early days, some of the gas stations near me played some cringy jimmy kimmel shit instead of ads (somehow, i preferred having my ears violated by the ads)
Yet one more thing that makes me thankful to have gotten rid of my car completely.. not being dependent on gas stations is super liberating.
You used to be able to mute them by pressing one of the side buttons
That only mutes the shit that plays constantly from the pump even when nobody is there using it. Once you start pumping, they start playing different shit that can't be muted.
Yeah haha definitely fake, these pumps don't have touch screens so this interface wouldn't work on them. Choices have to be aligned with the 4 buttons on the left and right. Second one from the top on the right side will mute the ads also.
This meme isn't implying that it's unusual to pump your own gas. It's implying that tipping culture in the US is progressing to the point of asking you to tip when you didn't receive a service performed by anyone since you did it yourself.
Self service is the default for most of the US. New Jersey and (I think) Oregon require full service gas stations though.
Today I had lunch at a restaraunt, I was given the option to tip so I did, expecting to get service. I got the fast food treatment, they threw a tray on the counter that I had to pickup and when I went to leave they made me bus my own table...
I've got family that used to rely on tips so I've always been a generous tipper. The recent tip culture has completely changed me though and now these expected tips just piss me off.
In some parts of New York you have to wait and have someone else pump your gas, they call them and attendant. I lived in New York for a while, and it was just terrible, any gas station that required you to wait for someone else to pump your gas I just drove past. Because they would always be slow as hell. Meanwhile it was a clear in and out at all of the self-service stations
It's because the POS (point of sale) software isn't customized for the application correctly. Either through laziness, ignorance, indifference, or a level of greed that only insane troll logic could make sense of
I scan my own groceries and i'll keep track of the hours to eventually hit them with a "freelance register operater" bill for €55 an hour.
As i'm freelance i need to pay 49% taxes on that and another x amount for insuring myself in case i have a work related accident, i'll be left with roughly €20 an hour which is a little over my actual wage as i'm apparently so skilled they want me to do the job so it must be worth it to them.
I think everyone everywhere should pull this shit, even if it's just to make a point. Show them how much they rely on free labour while living in big houses and driving fancy cars lol.
It seem to be best practice, and predatory best practice.
Some people fear of being jugded if they don't follow the mass. And the tip screen make them question themselves like "everybody else tip, what will they think if I don't ?" "What if someone watch over my shoulder and feel disgusting if I don't tip ?"
Where I live we had one gas station with full service when I was a kid, and it cost like a third more than any other gas station in the area so almost no one went there and it eventually went to self serve pumps like every other station. Aside from the one time I went there I have always pumped my own gas, and I'd feel weird if someone else did it for me lol
The cheapest gas station around me is the only full service one around. I hate it. I'll pay extra to not have to deal with the forced interaction. Tipping cancels out the discount anyways.
A state near mine that I visit occasionally has laws in place that prohibit pumping your own gas. I always forget this and get out of the car, which leads to a very awkward confrontation with the attendant. It definitely feels weird.
I have never pumped my own fuel on my car except when I visit the US. I feel like a 7 year old handling that pump thing. Happy I don't have to do that where I live.
This is a tip for me being such a good customer, right?
Can I start asking businesses for tips? Like for not committing crimes, and paying for my goods and services as agreed upon, you're going to have to subscribe to the premium customer program.